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Another Apartment Complex in East Downtown?

Here are some drawings of an apartment building that appears to be aimed for an empty lot in East Downtown. As drawn, the concept shows the 216-unit EaDo Place standing on the block bound by Bell, Clay, Chartres, and St. Emanuel — that’s right beside the former Meridian Club, where the food trucks idle and generators hum at the Houston Food Park. And it’s just 2 blocks from Bastrop St., where that pedestrian promenade leading to BBVA Compass Stadium is to be put into place. If built, the apartments would stand at 2616 Clay, just on the other side of the Southwest Fwy. from the George R. Brown Convention Center, and would top off some ground-floor retail, with a 30,938-sq.-ft. grocery store facing Bell and St. Emanuel.

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At this point, says a rep from the EaDo Management District, the drawings represent a concept more than a plan. Marketing materials indicate that said concept has been developed by PMI; county records show that PMI has owned the 62,500-sq.-ft. block in question since 2007.

Again, thank rail for bringing this new development right next to the rail line. Oh wait, it’s a 12 block walk to the closest station on either the current or planned line?

On another note, wasn’t this block planned to support a hotel or retail from a planned east of 59 expansion of the GRB Convention Center? Maybe I’m thinking of the block to the north (Chartes/Polk/St. Emanuel/Clay)? Or has that project been cancelled because of the new hotel being built north of the Disco Green?

The design is at least as boring as that of the planned Hines project in the Museum District. But we’ll give it a pass because everyone is so desperate to get something built in ‘EaDo’ that they can attribute to light rail.